Interestingly enough, I submitted a request to support asking them to reconsider their rejection of Pony Island, and their response was:

"Hello, I am afraid that we are unable to find anything about it ever being submitted here, could you give me any details, quote, links to that statement so I can investigate?"

I gave them that quote and the forum links, and they acknowledged that they found those and a promise on Facebook to release it on GOG, but still never acknowledged that they that they had a record of it ever being submitted. Support's responses were prompt and civil, which I appreciate, but this makes me think there are three (or 4ish depending on how you want to break it up) possibilities:

1) The dev or the publisher lied or at the very least was misinformed as to what has happened with GOG
2) There is such a problem with communication between support and operations at GOG that basic information like this isn't communicated reliably.
3) Support lied

Definitely not ideal any way you look at it.

What would the motive be for the developer to say he submitted the game when he didn't? Why would he ask that his message be posted here where a GOG employee could easily debunk it publicly and hurt his reputation?

Look at that response. So, these non-Steam publishers claim they submitted it but it was rejected. But they are going to re-submit it? Doesn't that sound a lot like that guy who owes you money, insists up and down he sent a check by mail and it must have been lost. So he's sending another one. Sounds to me as if that publisher forgot and never got around to submitting it in the first place...

Otherwise wouldn't the response be, "We submitted it once, it got rejected. Not getting my hopes up, but we can try submitting it again?"
The motive is to pacify the client after they screwed up. A lot of people will lie to save face. And I'm sure their services aren't exactly free.

Barry: No idea. Really had to wonder that myself
RW: Very plausible. Basically what I was leaning towards

I really tried to be as neutral as possible with my post and those three options because I was genuinely perplexed as to what could cause support to reply like that. Definitely not what I expected. I just figured it was worth mentioning after Barry brought up Pony Island.

I've got a handy, dandy suggestion for the woes of rejection right here!

That's my biggest bugbear with the site on the end that I actually care about (content).

Voted! The reason behind the rejection of some games lately by GOG should be divulged if legally allowable.

It's certainly reasonable to ask for just about anything really. I don't think it'd be realistic for them to actually do that though. All it would really do is end up fueling people to argue with them about every single decision they make. No matter what their "transparent" responses would be, it'd be used only to further fuel discontent by some percentage of people. That level of transparency can cause more harm than good to a business.

When you know that you have to sometimes say "no" to people/things/whatever, explaining yourself all of the time can appear to be defensive, and once you've done it you really end up in an endless loop having to redefend every comment you make after that. The only thing that ends the ensuing and inevitable flamewars is to stop responding. So you look bad to start with in some people's eyes, then look worse the more feedback/explanation/justification you communicate, and then look worse when you wont talk about it anymore because the horse has been beaten to death.

Honestly, no company out there is going to put themselves in such a vulnerable position like that when they stand to gain almost nothing from it and have nothing but a large amount of risk. All it amounts to is giving people who disagree with your decisions a huge platform with which to launch attacks against your every word.

GOG is already much more open and forthcoming about many things they do than just about any other game oriented company out there, and they don't really even owe us that. But like I said... it's ok to wish for anything at all, and certainly ok to ask for it.

maybe they should change the name to MOG ( Money Making Games)

or why not WOG ( wishlist only games)

seriously its embarrassing how each release that turns up here are to be based only on two things either it should be a money maker or it should have a ton of votes and spam requests by two people to get the game here.

Why not change the way , instead of just a couple of people deciding what game should end up here and wishlisting of every single change we need here .

why not do something directly ? There are has to be a more direct way than this , the selection of games these days is a mess and gog selectively picking up only few games for early access is a slap in the face for devs who tend to experiment in early access.

Steam allows any game to be early access rather than picking only those that have a 100% chance of making it because you have to take risks , most games in early access on steam look good concept wise but most of em turn out crap, thats what early access is for like testing laboratory . you are sure to find some gold but also coal most times.

Gog just implemented the 100% safe route of just picking the gold

I don't know what more I can ad, the Op already laid out the issues succinctly. +1

I am absolutely furious and exhausted with the current state of GOG, especially over it's biased, ignorant and frankly insulting excuse for "curation".

Leading to the question as to why a corporation would feel the need to feel defensive over the decisions it makes as it pleases. All I want is a simple explanation, rather than a shroud. It's one of the many reasons why I gave up on Nintendo as a whole. That company is so opaque that you can't even see out the windows in the building, metaphorically speaking. If a publisher turns it down, that's one thing (as my suggestion explains), but I think GOG wouldn't be hurt by a little disclosure for 'personal' rejections.

What would people define as a game too niche to sell? ( could be argued a game from the Football Manager series might be too niche as it only appeals to football and management fans - but in fact its the best selling game of its type by far and its popularity has been ongoing for years - yet is it too niche?)

Where does one draw the line for refusing a game?. Are people upset about this because they feel their game is deserving to be sold on GOG? , but GOG feels the game is too shite (not literally but you know what i mean) or wont sell or wont appeal to the customers?.

Golly, too bad there's no governmental body around to force GOG to do everything you want them to do at only the cost of 15-20% of your income in taxes.

The simple reason ultimately is that they're running a business to make money. I don't mean "be an evil corporation trying to drain the pockets of the world with an evil agenda" make money either. The purpose of every business ever started anywhere is to ultimately make money. The decisions a business makes day to day for any other motivations ultimately need to contribute to the number one goal of making money if the business is to continue to grow and be successful. Explaining every reason for every decision made to customers comes off as being insecure and unsure, gives the impression that decisions made and actions taken are negotiable, and invites and amplifies criticism, judgment, blame, and generally fosters hostility. Maybe not by everyone, but certainly by enough that can matter, and IMHO that is certainly something to tread carefully with in today's day and age of the mob-mentality Internet where people gang up together on social media etc. to take words out of context and lynch mob to get what they want.

Any particular businesses out there may get criticized/judged for lack of explanations for their actions and decisions, but I bet that they'd rather have that any day than the amplified and intensified criticism and judgment they'd certainly get by over-explaining themselves and trying to justify every decision and action they take.

As for where they draw the line on accepting or rejecting games, it really doesn't matter overly much. Wherever the line is there will be games close to that line on either side which people disagree with, and always try to constantly debate moving that line to "accept all games all the time and let me decide" which is the approach Steam has went with largely.

There will always be people who disagree. That's not only ok however, it's completely expected and couldn't be any other way.

Shots fired!

State-ists
Told x
Not Told

Isaac is DRM-free on Humble Bundle. And I think GOG is more profitable than HB. So why Edmund refuses to release a DRM-free version on GOG too? It's possible GOG rejected Isaac.